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Of late, day in and day out, social media platforms in Malaysia are inundated with reels of citizen-vigilante action groups against so-called illegal stalls set up by the immigrant population, specifically the Rohingya, all over the city, especially around Selayang.
It looks like citizens have made it their birthright to walk into stalls and shops to demand their licences and work permits, accompanied by roving mobile phone cameras.
The commentator would then hurl insults at the immigrants who do not have a business permit in the first place. In Malaysia, certain goods deemed essential for daily consumption are protected by law. To sell cooking oil, cooking gas, and rice, one needs special business permits. There are certain bylaws regarding the sale of fresh produce and meat. These businesses default on all of these.
The vigilante group would verbally abuse the immigrants for overstepping the welcome given by the Malaysians to them. They were granted asylum as fellow brothers of the same faith, but the vigilantes assert they had overstayed their welcome. They accuse the Rohingyas of siphoning off the country's wealth, stealing locals' businesses, and even spending lavishly at their private functions and, unbelievably, talking back to the locals!
That is how things have become, with the locals taking the law into their own hands while the rightfully employed officers slumber on the job. This influx of Rohingyas started about 10 years ago after the political leaders gave a blanket rule to magnanimously allow Rohingya refugees to land on our shores when they were denied entry to Indonesia. As the general election was imminent, the leaders wanted to earn some brownie points among the majority population, who are Muslims as well. Malaysia did not need to do that, as it is not a signatory to the 1951 UNHCR Refugee Convention, but it did so anyway.
Since it is not a signatory to the convention, Malaysia is not required to provide them with accommodation, schooling, or healthcare. This duty is handled by the numerous NGOs and charitable organisations around the country. The refugees, after going through hell to reach where they were, still had the fire to work hard and achieve things in their lives. They were young; hormones ran high, so they married. That union produced offspring. Children needed to receive a sound education, since their final destination was expatriation to another host country. If Malaysia did not provide education for refugees, they made makeshift schools. That, apparently, was against the local law. To support their families, they needed to be creative in making money. Again, all their endeavours ran afoul of local laws.
Everyone has ambitions and wants to be a step better than the generation that preceded them. Youth is finite. They cannot be living as beggars or on handouts forever. Anyway, the refugees are willing to do the work that is shunned by locals for being dirty, dangerous and degrading.
The citizens are barking up the wrong tree. They should instead channel their anger towards the politicians who systematically allowed foreigners to flood the country, as well as the enforcement officers and civil servants who are on the take or work with one or two eyes shut! Humans, Rohingya, migrants or not, are just fulfilling their biological and social needs. They are simply completing their raison d'être.
Farouk Gulsara (asokansham@gmail.com) is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!
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